[John Cuevas]

Comp settings wouldn’t effect the alpha channel, but as an Avid editor/AE guy, you will save yourself headaches if you set your AE settings to your final settings in Avid. Avid just isn’t as flexible and when it resizes it will often cause some strange scaling issues and artifacting.

As to the Targa issue, when you render it, in the output module make sure your video output is set to RGB + Alpha and in the format options change the resolution to 32 bits/pixel. See if that doesn’t solve the problem.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

Here’s one type – not sure how customizable it would be:

https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/dynamic_bar_graphs/

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

I’m not sure what the codecs one whould choose for FCP, but what you want to do is render out your animation with an alpha channel(if your comp has transparency). Ctrl+Shift+/ (Windows) or Command+Shift+/ (Mac OS) is the command to add a composition to the render queue.

Check out the rendering tutorial from Andrew Kramer:

https://www.videocopilot.net/basic/#10

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

The left and right channels are just being seperated in FCP, you have stereo. Left Mono + Right Mono = Stereo

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

Above your layers, where it says “#” “Source Name” “Trk Mat” try Right clicking in a blank area and make sure that “A/V Features” is selected.

Not sure what the keyboard shortcut is to turn that off, but I’m guessing you inadvertly did that.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

Without seeing exactly how you placed your keyframes, we are just guessing. If you collect your files and zip up the project – you can upload it here(last icon in the reply dialogue). I’d be happy to take a look and see if I can determine where the project got off track.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

The mask defines the alpha channel of the layer and it’s the first thing that AE looks at. After you told it, use this alpha channel, you applied an effect that says use this alpha channel. AE’s order of operations is Masks -> Effects -> Transformations.

If you want to use both(shift channels & mask), apply the effect to your video and precompose your layer, “shift + cntl + c”. Now mask the precomposed layer.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

In the comp window in the upper right corner is a pulldown, open that and go to “view options” and check and make sure your layer controls and handles are both checked.

ETA: To show or hide layer controls in a view, choose View > Show Layer Controls, or press Ctrl+Shift+H (Windows) or Command+Shift+H (Mac OS). This command also shows or hides the 3D reference axes.

As far as plugins, redgiant.com will allows trial versions of all the plugins and offers student pricing…great free ones…there really aren’t too many of those.

Red Giant Student Pricing

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

In AE, you use the pen or mask shape tools to create masks that can be animated. Once you make the mask you twirl down your layer settings, click on mask shape stopwatch and set a keyframe. Move the CTI(current time indicator) to a different time and change your mask.

In that video besides masking a lot of those reveals were done by animating opacity, scale along with masking.

Going to make an assuption Aaron that you are very new to AE, you should check out the page of Getting Started links that Todd Kopriva has put together.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[John Cuevas]

Check out this tutorial at video copilot, will explain a few of the concepts of turning 2d photos into more a 3d look: https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/virtual_3d_photos/

For the blades it looks like they were cut out(masked), turned into a 3d layer, had the anchor point adjusted and just rotated very fast with motion blur turned on.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.